The Fools' Body
Calling all Fools! Come back! Come back!
Come back to the sweet, poignant ridiculousness of the Fools Bubble!
Come, hang out with your body and find ways to listen to and express the wisdom contained within it!
Come, play, learn, discover, laugh and cry with a bunch of well-seasoned fools, at the height of summer in Bristol!
The Fools’ Body is a brand new Advanced Fools Training for anyone who has completed Holly Stoppit’s 5-day Fooling workshop. Your trusty guides, Holly Stoppit and Dominique Fester, will be drawing on their combined treasure chest of Fooling, movement, dance, physical theatre, dramatherapy, Integrative, Humanistic and Person-centred therapy, IFS and somatic inquiry to offer a deep exploration of the body for the Fools stage.
The Details
Dates: Monday 25th - Friday 29th August 2025
Times: 10am-6pm each day
Location: Clifton, Bristol (more details on booking)
Cost: £650 (standard) / £550 (low wage) / £450 (very low / no wage)
Application deadline: Friday 6th June
During this 5-day training Holly and Dominique will be offering explorations of:
>Somatic meditations / techniques to help ground into the body
>Different ways to move your body, inspired by the elements, colours, various materials (such as elastic bands and glue) and who knows what else!
>Embodying the masks / parts that live within your body
Who is Dominique Fester?
If you don’t know Dominique Fester, you’re in for a treat! Dominique trained at Lecoq in Paris and Rubicon Dance in Cardiff before finding Fooling. Dominique started her Fools training with Holly around 10 years ago and became a core member of Beyond The Ridiculous shortly after that. Dominique has also trained as an Integrative, Humanistic and Person-centred therapist, which enables her to work at depth with enormous amounts of care. More about Dominique below.
What’s The Story?
In 2022, Holly took some time out. She went on a quest to heal her grief and figure out how to live a life free of burnout. She spent a year at a meditation retreat centre before training in Internal Family Systems (IFS). Throughout this quest, Holly experienced mountains of profound insights and healing, but she often found herself asking: WHAT ABOUT THE BODY?
As a fool, clown, improviser and dramatherapist, Holly’s body has always been her main means of divination and expression, yet there didn’t seem to be much space for full bodied expression in the land of meditation or the world of IFS. Holly has spent the last two years exploring ways to bring the body, mindfulness, IFS and play together. Dominique has been one of Holly’s wonderful research playmates throughout this time.
This year Holly wanted to create a new Advanced Fools Training focussed on listening to and expressing through the body and she immediately thought of Dominique as co-facilitator. Dominique’s body-based offers will be a wonderful addition to the Fools bag of tricks, plus Dominique’s presence and commitment will be a huge support for Holly in this new chapter of sustainability in work and life.
What’s going to happen?
This workshop is designed for a group of up to 12 Fools.
They will all have done Holly’s 5-day Fooling course.
Holly and Dominique will share the facilitation, each offering a range of tasty tools from their extensive toolkits.
There will be a mixture of experimental workshops and solo stage time.
We have two great spaces to work in, as well as a big expanse of green space nearby.
Sometimes we’ll be all together as a big group and sometimes we’ll split into two smaller groups to give everyone more stage time.
It will be immersive, emergent, and never to be repeated!
You’ll come out of the week with a tonne of techniques to help you listen to the wisdom contained in your body and a range of skills that you can use to broaden and deepen your stage performance.
You coming?
The Details (again)
Dates: Monday 25th - Friday 29th August 2025
Times: 10am-6pm each day
Location: Clifton, Bristol (more details on booking)
Cost: £650 (standard) / £550 (low wage) / £450 (very low / no wage)
Application deadline: Friday 6th June
Application process: There is an application process to make sure you're a good fit for the course. After the application deadline, Holly and Dominique will select a balanced group based on age, gender, experience and reasons for joining the course. In our experience these courses benefit hugely from having a good mix people in the room.
Access
Holly and Dominique are both trained and registered therapists and delight in holding space for people with mild to moderate mental health issues. They are both highly experienced in working with neurodivergent and LGBTQI+ people. They will create a brave space where you can bring yourself and your needs.
This course is not appropriate for anyone who is currently experiencing psychosis.
Holly and Dominique welcome people with disabilities.The venue has 3 toilets - one is accessible at ground level, with a sink inside the cubicle. The venue has stairs leading between the two spaces, which will unfortunately make it not possible for wheelchair users to move between the spaces.
Covid Care
>There are still people who are vulnerable to covid and Holly wants everyone to feel as safe as possible in the space.
>We can't guarantee a Covid-free environment, but we can do our best to minimise the risks for people with compromised immunity and/or those who are connected with immune-compromised people.
>If you have any covid-like symptoms, please take a lat-flow test and please don't come if you have tested positive.
>All exercises can work with social distancing, if that is what you need. Please make sure that physical proximity is consensual.
>You are welcome to wear a mask if that makes you feel safer. Holly will not be asking people to wear masks.
>We will be working with windows open for ventilation, so please bring extra warm layers.
>We will have an open discussion and make a group agreement on the first day to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable enough.
Cancellation Policy
> If you need to cancel your place before the course begins, full refunds can only be given up until one month before the course starts.
> Should you need to cancel your place after this date, 50% of your payment will be retained, unless your place can be suitably filled.
> For drop-outs within 72 hours (3 days) of the start of the course, your full fee will be retained.
> If Holly needs to cancel this course for any reason, you will be offered alternative dates. If you are unable to attend the rescheduled dates, then we will offer a refund.
More about Dominique Fester
Dominique Fester is a creative arts practitioner based in Cardiff with a special interest in Somatics and embodied practice. With a background in psychotherapy she links her work as both artist and teacher with mental health and wellbeing, extending this space to others. Dominique originally trained in physical theatre at the renowned theatre school Ecole Jacques Lecoq, graduating in advance performance and theatre training as well as studying dance and movement at Rubicon, Cardiff. Dominique is a longstanding member of ‘Beyond The Ridiculous’, a fooling collective based in Bristol directed by Holly Stoppit, & also directs her own fooling collective ‘Wise Women’ in Cardiff. Her work as an independent artist is rooted in British Folk, with current projects including an annual solstice celebration at the internationally important Neolithic monument of Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey; performing folk tales and songs through the Welsh Collective Carreg Ateb and at Cardiff M.A.D.E. As a qualified theatre studies teacher and experienced creative arts facilitator of many years, she offers solid holding, warmth and humour, enriched by her work as a fully qualified, registered (BACP) Integrative, Humanistic and Person-centred therapist. She looks forward to offering ways to deepen into movement and embodiment as tools to enrich our fooling practice and ourselves.
More about Holly Stoppit
You know Holly if you’ve done her 5 day Fools School. But you might not know this version of Holly. She’s older, fatter, greyer, with more lines on her face, but she’s also happier and more grounded than ever. She’s spent the last few years immersing herself in meditation (Mostly Insight and Plum Village stylee and various somatic meditation practices), dance (5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, contemporary and contact improvisation), and IFS (Level 1 completed in 2023, currently training in IFIO (IFS couples therapy) and soon to complete Somatic IFS Level 1). For the last few years, Holly has been co-creating various therapeutic performance labs with a host of incredible practitioners from a broad range of backgrounds. These labs have led to the creation of an array of workshops and guest teaching / conference speaking including: ‘The IFS / Fooling Lab’ in Bristol, ‘Playing With The Unknown’ for Clown Spirit (online), ‘Embodied, Playful and Creative Approaches to IFS’ at the IFS Open Space in Bristol, ‘Exploring Internal and External Systems’ for Dramatherapy Southwest’s Conference, and ‘Exploring Inner Conflict Through Embodied and Creative Approaches to IFS’ for The British Association of Dramatherapists’ conference.
